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Great for a cheap tasty lunch

I have brought Heinz Tomato, swee Chilli and pasta soup for a quick and tasty dinner when at work. As we have a microwave in the office I is great to just bung a soup in there if a nice warm meal at work.

Heinz say that this soup is simple yet delicious. Heinz tomato, sweet chilli and pasta soup combines tomatoes, red peppers and pasta, with a sprinkle of sweet red chillies to add a little lift. Tasty on its own. or served with warm crusty white bread.

I have read the other reviews and they do not seem to like this soup, but personally I do, and think it is a nice twist on the normal tomato soup. The addition of the pasta means it is a bit more filling that the plain tomato, and for me is just right for a quick lunch.

It is also handy that the soups now have the lids that you can just peal off as its handy if there is no tin opener around.

This soup is suitable for vegetarians, and contains no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.

There are 73 calories per serving, but this is based on only having half the can, and to be realistic who only eats half a can of soup! therefore it is really 146 calories per serving.

The cooking instructions are simple, on the hob just emply the can into a saucepan and stir until warm enough to eat. And with the microwave, but it in a microwavable container amd heat on full power for 2 minutes, stir, then heat for another 1 minute and you are good to go.

Overall: Yes this is not as great as some other soups and it is not as posh as the covent gadren sorts of soup. But if you just want to bang it in the microwave and eel you have had a good warm lunch that has filled you up, you can not go wrong. The good thing is that you can get some good offers on Heinz soups, so can be a good value luch too.

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A really bland soup

I'm going through a bit of a soup phase at the moment. I think as it's getting so blooming cold and dark, i'm reaching for the ultimate comfort food. Also my husband is nowhere near close to allowing me to put the central heating on, so a nice steaming hot bowl of soup helps warm me up.

Today when I was doing my weekly Tesco shop, I was scanning the shelves for a flavour that I hadn't tried before and I spotted a can of Heinz Tomato Sweet Chilli & Pasta Soup. This really appealed to me and the combination of ingredients sounded right up my street. My all time favourite soup is good old Heinz tomato and I was quite excited by the sound of this variety. I popped the can in my trolley and it cost 94p for a 400g can.

Shopping done and unpacked, and by lunchtime I was really hungry. I popped it into a saucepan and heated on the stove until it was piping hot. It had a great aroma but I have to say it didn't look all that appetisizing. It was much thinner in it's consistancy than I had expected and I actually think that it looked quite watery. I could see the chilli and the pasta came in the form of quite large shells.

Ok so how it fair on the taste test... well I was hugely dissappointed. It was just a bit bland and didn't have the kick that I had been hoping for. The tomato flavour wasn't at all tangy enough and the pasta just tasted bland. The soup was far too thin, I found it quite unsatisfying and when I dunked some bread in it, the flavour didn't really stand up against the bread.

I just think that this soup is a bit of a limp effort from Heinz and you'd be better off sticking to the plain tomato flavour or their minestrone if you fancy something with pasta in. I certainly won't bother with this one again.

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Definitely not up to the Heinz brand quality

I'm the first to admit that I am a bit boring when it comes to tinned soup, and being 'unadventurous' I know what I like and I will stick to it. My favourite soup of all time is the classic Heinz vegetable.

Almost everything about this soup is perfect. The rich and creamy texture, the full- bodied tomato sauce, and the assortment of vegetables (being carrots, peas and potatoes amongst others). The only thing I am not to keen on are the small pasta tubes (pasta in soup just does not work for me) but these are so few I can hardly tell they are present.

Whilst eagerly looking for a tin of vegetable soup I managed to get hold of a tin of Heinz tomato, sweet chilli & pasta and ripped it open without looking (you've go to love the pull top style tins) before realising my error. Since it was open I thought I would give it a try. I wouldn't waste it in any case.

****Ingredients****

Along with the 'normal' ingredients found in all soups, such as water, corn flour and the like, this soup contains onion, red peppers, garlic puree, herbs, spices, red chilli and pasta.

Whilst the tin does not specify what constitutes 'spice' and 'herbs' (is this Heinz's secret formula?). I'm in two minds over this. Whilst I appreciate that Heinz will want some secrecy to avoid other competitive companies copying its idea I think that consumers should have the right to know exactly what they are eating. There could be some medical reason why a consumer cannot eat a specific food item, and this may be encapsulated within the 'spices' or 'herbs', which presents a real risk.

****Consistency****

This soup is very watery. It lacks the body and thickness of the vegetable soup, which surprised me.

I would say that the consistency resembles that of a cuppa soup or some other type of powdered soup (obviously once mixed with water) and is not up to the typical Heinz quality.

****Smell****

This soup has a distinct lack of smell, which I find is untypical of the Heinz brand as when I open a tin of vegetable soup there is a strong waft of rich tomato sauce.

I think the lack of smell is due to the fact that the ingredients are just too watered down, as depicted by the 'thin' consistency.

****Taste****

With the list of ingredients I would have expected this soup to be quite tasty. I love onion, peppers, chilli and tomato and in all types of international cooking (I'm thinking more Chinese and Mexican) these flavours really bring out the best in each other.

How wrong I was. The ingredients just did not work for me. You'd expect it to be a full, strong flavour with a bit of heat behind it, but it wasn't. As with the lack of smell, I think that the lack of taste is down to the soup being too watery.

I could feel a slight tingle on my lips and tongue after I had consumed the soup but I couldn't tell whether this was down to the spices and chilli, or whether it was because I hadn't let it cool down enough before I was consuming it.

The pasta shells add absolutely nothing to this soup. Unlike the small pasta tubes in vegetable, which are so small they are not really noticeable, these are of a fair size. Having random pieces of pasta floating around is not right. You either have lots of pasta in a thick sauce (i.e. a proper pasta dish) or you have no pasta (i.e. soup). In my opinion there is no middle ground.

****Nutritional information****

A half can serving, i.e. 200g, provides a meagre 73 calories. This is one tin of soup where the consumer can devour the whole can and still stay within a calorie counting diet. This cannot be said about many other types of soup, but would you want to sacrifice taste for calories?

Nutritionally, the worst thing about this soup is the high level of carbohydrates making it unsuitable for those on the Atkins or any other low carbohydrate diet. This is not unexpected since many processed foods are high in carbohydrates.

Other than carbohydrates/sugars this soup contains traces of everything else.

This soup is suitable for vegetarians but contains wheat, gluten, egg, celery and celeriac so if you have an allergy to these then this is not for you.

****Conclusion****

I would not recommend this soup. For me it lacked smell, it was too watery and it was tasteless and it was not filling, even though I could eat the whole can and not feel guilty or piggish later on in the day. In addition it has random pasta shells floating around in it, which to me just does not work. This soup is not up to the Heinz quality that I am used to.

I am going to stick to vegetable soup in the future, and just make sure that I am more careful, and not so eager, when looking for it.